Mysteries of a Meeting with God in Sajdah:
One-on-One
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
Imagine This Scene
Imagine the following set of circumstances:
You have received a personal invitation, monogram and all, followed up by a string of emissaries making a beeline to your door, from a king, president, corporate CEO or prime minister, for a personal meeting – at close range.
Did I say president, prime minister or “king”? Let us change that to “king,” pure and simple, and drop the other options.
For, when you are talking to Muslims, or about them, it is best to keep the conversation limited to kings. For, Muslims understand kings.
Muslims have them. They live with them. And they, to all intents and purposes, love them.
Muslim Kings and Their Colonial Protectors
Fat kings, short kings, good kings, bad kings, all kinds of kings, but kings nonetheless, Muslims have them all, and Muslims are just about the only ones in the world who have them.
And there is no expense or bloodshed to which the former and present Colonial Masters of Muslims will not go to protect, preserve and defend them.
That is your Muslims for you, people with a nice and rich treasure trove of kings.
So, the king invites you for a close personal meeting. You show up. And before you know it, the time is up, the meeting is over, and you are told to get up and leave.
That, ladies & gentlemen, is how Sajdah is – during a Salah or Namaz. It is the closest a human being comes to God, on this earth.
The Sorrow of Having to Rise from Sajdah
If you really think of it, how sorrowful it is that you are given access; you are told to come; for, without being invited you cannot really show up there; and then, immediately thereafter, you are told to go!
Just like that!
Business of Being God’s Khalifah on Earth
Of course, God lets you go, even though he would like to keep you longer, because you have work to do in this world – and commitments to carry out. Commitments that God himself made you undertake, such as all this Khalifah Business that he placed on your shoulders when he created you:
Being God’s own personal representative on earth, running and managing the affairs of this earth in God’s name, and according to God’s Laws, and doing it all in the best, sweetest, gentlest, and the most just, most fair and most honorable way possible.
Hear God say it in his own words:
Innee Jaa’ilun Fil Ardi Khalifah!
That is what God said to the angels when he was about to create the Human Being. That was God’s personal announcement of the phenomenon of human birth in this world.
Birthday Announcement or Position Description (PD)
A Birthday Announcement of sorts if you want to call it that. And I don’t think anyone ever had a better or more powerful one – or one with greater fanfare.
Or a more serious one, for that matter.
For, this was as much a declaration of intent, and a job bulletin, as an announcement of birth.
For, God was not only announcing that the Human Being was coming, he was also specifying what the role and duties of that Human Being will be on earth.
God was laying out, in a nutshell as they say, what the Human Being will be expected to do on earth and how he will be expected to act.
My broad paraphrase of those divine words in the Qur’an goes something like this:
“I plan to place a personal representative of mine on earth who will run and manage the affairs of my earth according to my commands and laws and for the benefit of all my earthly subjects.”
Duty Awaits
So, that is who you are. And that is who we all are, as human beings: God’s own personal representatives, Khalifah, on earth.
So, having been invited to this very private tete-a-tete, a very personal meeting – just you and your God – now you have to interrupt this meeting that is occurring in your Sajdah and come back on out to the world.
You must go, you are told, for duty awaits – your duty as Khalifatullah: as citizen, as family man or woman, as student, as politician or soldier, as cobbler and candlestick maker, as someone Working for Allah, and so on.
That is how important this Khalifah thing is in this world. Even God does not want to detain you and keep you from your work – from your earthly duties.
Shame of the Chicken-Peck Sajdah
But then how sorry should one feel for those unfortunate wretches among us whose Sajdah is no more than a Chicken-Peck?
And what do you think of those folks who overstay their welcome, and prolong their departure from the Sajdah, when they should be out in the real world hustling their Khalifah Business?
So, at all costs, when you are making Sajdah, avoid the Chicken-Peck. For, it is an insult to Sajdah and an affront to God.
Moral of the Sajdah Story
Moral of the story?
Make every Sajdah count. Make it of reasonable length in public and during daytime.
Train yourself to enjoy it!
And make your Sajdah as long as you wish during night, or when you are alone, or when you have nothing else to do?
Imagine a Muslim with Nothing To Do!
As if!
Imagine a Muslim with nothing to do!
Holiday from being Allah’s Khalifah on earth? That is what it sounds like.
Never heard of time zones? When the sun is setting in one place, it is rising somewhere else. And that means when your office is closing in one part of the world, it is opening in a very different part of the world.
Khalifah on All of Earth
And it is all located on the same earth over all parts of which you were made the Khalifah. Not on just this or that part.
And you were not given a five-, six- or four-day work week. Or a four-day French weekend. Your God did not rest on Day Seven.
Your God is one who neither tires nor sleeps. So, you are supposed to work 24-7.
Rabbil Mashaariqi wal Maghaarib
Never heard of Rabbil Mashaariqi wal Maghaarib that the Qur’an talks about? That is who your God is: Rabbil Mashaariqi wal Maghaarib!
He is everywhere. And the whole existence is his domain.
And he owns every place everywhere – places that lie under multiple Sunrises and multiple Sunsets in multiple Solar Systems, Galaxies, and what not.
So, if you are Khalifah in one place, you are Khalifah everywhere.
And if you are Khalifah today, you are Khalifah every moment of your earthly life.
Muslim Knows
While all human beings are Khalifah of God on earth, men as well as women, a “Muslim” is simply a fellow, man or woman, who knows. It is someone who owns up to the contract he or she made with God.
It is someone who takes his or her Khalifah Business seriously.
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